Maritime AI Innovation Lab

The Maritime AI Innovation Lab contributes to a safer and more sustainable maritime sector through digitalization. The challenges to design and operate ships are increasing. Emission free ships and operations require more complex propulsion, power and energy systems. The damage caused by accidents at sea can be enormous. Through the application of AI we can make many systems smarter and better support design and operation alike.

The Maritime AI Innovation Lab provides the Dutch maritime industry a platform to develop, validate and demonstrate sector-wide innovative prototypes for successful adoption of data-driven solutions.

Four professorships of NHL Stenden join forces and participate in this project and share their expertise in law and ethics, maritime innovative techniques and data science. A professional doctorate track at NHL Stenden is part of this project.

What is the motivation for the project?

Through investment in this Innovation Lab the parties aim to achieve an improvement of their services. The Innovation Lab will also provide more fundamental technological building blocks. With these components, the maritime industry will become more accessible to AI developers and can also benefit from future developments. AI-technologies can be easily integrated with maritime design or operational practices. In this way, there is a lasting impact on the entire sector

What problem does the project address?

AI, and digitalization in general, offer the maritime sector many opportunities to become safer, more efficient and more sustainable. Optimal use of AI and the creation of solutions based on AI require a multidisciplinary combination of knowledge and skills. The Maritime AI Innovation Lab brings these together for the benefit of the Dutch maritime sector.

Who is the project team? 

MARIN is lead partner of the project. RH Marine, HMC, DAMEN, NHL Stenden and TU Delft participate in the Innovation Lab as core partners. Nederland Maritiem Land (NML) will join as cooperation partner. The entire consortium is a representative group of industrial partners of the maritime sector and it’s supply chain.

The professorships Maritime Law and Governance & Safety in a Digitalizing Society of NHL Stenden provide legal input for the development of the data community modules. The professorship of Maritime Innovation Techniques of NHL Stenden contributes to the optimization of design and operation of, for example wind assisted ships. The professorship Computer Vision & Data Science of NHL Stenden contributes to the development of proof-of-concept solutions to address specific maritime challenges of applying AI technology.

A professional doctorate track at NHL Stenden is part of this project. Students of Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz and the Thorbecke Academy participate in the Maritime AI Innovation Lab.

How does the project team approach this?

The Innovation Lab seeks to improve both designs as well as operation of future ships and will involve onboard crew in developing new working procedures and onboard support tools to make more effective use of scarce personnel. With this, operational gains can be achieved through more efficient fuel consumption, timely maintenance, safe and predictable operations, extension of service life and support for design. By integrating domain knowledge and data driven technologies, our InnovationLab provides a unique and modular development environment for the entire industry. This broad approach includes a combination of physical modeling, measurements on scale models, simulators or in operation, (self-learning) control technology, (un)supervised learning and reinforcement learning. Participating companies and knowledge institutions will create the foundation on which future maritime developments will be built.